Well, thar seems to be as many opinions out there as as there are fish in the sea. Just wanted to hear what you all have experienced and I’m sure this has crossed a lot of your minds at one time or another. My understanding has always been that they were made from an alloy and that they were tempered. Obviously they could be reshaped by heating but my personal feeling is that they would need to be heat treated after bending. Heating them would leave them in an annealed condition if they were simply left to cool down in still air. If they were quenched they would have been to hard and would need to be drawn back before using them.
However, I have read as many reports on various forums where they have been heated, bent and used with no problems for years. That really does go against my logic, but as they say, you can't argue with success. I still haven’t found a reliable source that could tell me what the alloy is, that would answer a whole bunch of questions.
Interesting subject, thanks for your opinions.
Neil, I one of those guys that is money dumb, and with the economy in shambles my retirement income is down more than I care to admit. But the good news is, I get to keep the house and truck! Haven’t been working on the truck much lately because of all that, I’ve been spending my buddy’s money, helping him get his ’50, 1/2 ton road worthy. Spent the winter learning about record players, I’m into radio collecting and restoration but never messed with the phonographs till this winter.
As a side note, I threw a question out about using a anti-sway bar on my 3/4 ton over at the VCCA and the general consensus is that “it would do no good on a leaf spring chassis” or “they are only effective with independent suspension” or “why would you want to do that with a 3/4 ton truck”, that last one I still can’t figure out. Seems to me that I’ve read a lot of reports from the Bolters here that are real satisfied with the results after installing an anti-sway bar on their straight axle AD’s.
Thanks all,
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
